Editorial: Winners and Losers for July 30th - Aug. 5th '16

I'm going to try a new segment here called Winners and Losers. Here, I will give my opinions on four items in pro wrestling that won the week in professional wrestling and four that wished that this week could have been skipped eternally.

*Winners*

Rhyno: Rhyno has been killing it as of late on NXT and recently on Smackdown just by giving the Gore to poor old Heath Slater two weeks in a row. Now, he's got himself a bigger title shot than a contract on Smackdown: Michigan State House Of Reps. This week, he won his primary and is looking to defeat current sitting house member George Danary. Although the pools are not on Rhyno's favor, he is looking to defy them. Star Power is a killer X Factor in politics, so this race is up in the air.

Randy Orton & Brock Lesnar: I gotta give these two joint winners spots since both of their big spots this week were the most impactful in wrestling. The feud was set up as a big-time fight, but Orton got the first shot in at Battleground when he said that he'll beat him with "no enhancements needed". During the rundown by Heyman on RAW, Orton hit his patented "RKOutta Nowhere" and ran off like a thief in the night. Brock would return the favor on Smackdown by just hitting an F-5 and leaving Orton laying. This makes me want to see the match at Summerslam.

BROKEN Matt Hardy: I will always be a fan of V1-Matt Hardy, but BROKEN Matt is one of the best things going in TNA or Pro Wrestling in general. This week, he had a very entertaining and impressive podcast with Chris Jericho, which you should listen to right now, and on Impact, got some use from his obsolete mule and started a campaign to get the Tag Team titles from The Decay by taking the Pac-Man Jones approach and doing nothing. I'm loving the overarching storyline right now with Matt and any of the belligerent Brother Nero supporters who get in his way, especially that one fan who thought that even touching the broken one wouldn't have any consequences. May they all become victim to deletion!

Tomasso Ciampa v. Johnny Gargano: I must confess. I haven't watched much of the Cruiserweight Classic, but this match was amazing. Great psychology and great moves cap what has been a fascinating tournament. There isn't much to go into detail on this, except for go check it out, either on the WWE YouTube page or on the Network.

*Losers*

Ryback: While certain personalities in wrestling are quite dim when it comes to having a good presence on social media (Looking at you, Josh Mathews), Ryback is in a class all of his own. Instead of leaving things be, he will be the Social Media Drama Queen and make him the center of attention at the cost of his own standing. It was announced on Friday that he left WWE in a rather petulant Instagram video after a bitter contract dispute. Shane Douglas may have been great at burning bridges, Ryback not only torched the bridge, but all the lumber in the surrounding area to build the next 5 of them. Enjoy the land of irrelevancy, you big dummy.

Eli Drake: Now we get from an asshole drama queen to someone who just is an asshole in Eli Drake. I've watched him in Championship Wrestling from Hollywood and he always thought he was "too good for the room". This feeling has always festered during his run in Impact Wrestling, and was put to bed for good when he lost the title to James Storm, making him become irrelevant. Thank goodness. There's such a thing as being a dick in character, but when you're a dick in real life, then you deserve a place on this list.

Maria & Michael Bennett: Terrible week for the power couple. Maria's trying her best to be an Alpha Female, but instead is coming off as an inferior version of Reby Sky, who has the Broken-ness down. This was a problem with her in ROH and it's becoming more of a problem here. She put her trust in this dopey trainee in Allie and the current TNA Knockouts champion in Sierra to stop Gail Kim and that plan fell apart faster than any of her matches in WWE. Now we get to the dead weight in Bennett. It seems like he's one gigantic goodness vacuum, sucking away everything entertaining and fascinating around him. This came to a head on Impact as he tried using Maria, Moose and everything that he could to beat EC3 and couldn't get it done. Bennett is overvalued and underdelivering at every turn. What started out as a miracle has quickly turned into yet another TNA moneysuck. Cut Bait and run away fast from him, Moose. You're talented on your own and don't need to be shackled to dead weight.

Single Sasha Banks Fans Who Hoped To Marry Her Someday: I know of a few fans of the Boss that were hoping that she'd marry them. Now they won't have the chance. At a small, intimate, private ceremony this week, she tied the knot with WWE seamster Sarath Ton aka Kid Mikaze from UpUpDownDown. Time to move on to someone just as beautiful and single, possibly Allie in TNA, even if she has the annoying Minnie Mouse voice. I would suggest Rosemary, but she may be wanted for Murder after what she did with Bram on Impact last week.